How to prevent brew install from automatically linking contents from a folder?

[cesarcoatl]

Hello.

I have created formulae (not yet published), and I am going the "versioned" route, e.g. [email protected], [email protected], with the intention of installing and running both on the same machine.

But the problem I am facing is that some files and folders are linked at /usr/local/lib, so when I try to install the other version I get a warning and it is instructing me to execute brew link --overwrite, which would "unlink" the other version.

Is there something I can do on the install block or anywhere else so both versions can coexist?

Thanks!

[carlocab]

Try using keg_only :versioned_formula. This will avoid symlinking them into /usr/local, but you can find them in /usr/local/opt/foo@version.

[cesarcoatl]

I see. But that prevents the creation of symlinks under /usr/local/bin, something that I am also intending here (see #546).

After installing both formulae I do see each one has its symlink under /usr/local/opt, and I do get this message:

$ brew install [email protected]
...
==> Caveats
[email protected] is keg-only, which means it was not symlinked into /usr/local,
because this is an alternate version of another formula.

If you need to have [email protected] first in your PATH run:
  echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/[email protected]/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc

For compilers to find [email protected] you may need to set:
  export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/[email protected]/lib"

I have no issue with updating my references from /usr/local/bin to /usr/local/opt/[email protected]/bin, but just to make sure I clearly undersand. Is this the only option for this type of formulae?

[carlocab]

Another option is to manually rename things in $(brew --cellar foo@version)/{bin,include,lib} so that it doesn't conflict with what's there for foo@another_version.

You can have a look at the [email protected] formula for an example of this.

[cesarcoatl]

This is basically what I've got for this formula:

class FooAT10 < Formula
  desc "Awesome description"
  homepage "https://foo.com/"
  url "https://files.foo.com/release/foo/1.0/foo-1.0.zip", using: :curl, referer: "https://foo.com/"
  sha256 "7122870ff380ac0ffc22a81fd13ff7bc5de1a0736ac39f7bed9456cfec4b799a"
  license :cannot_represent

  def install
    prefix.install Dir["*"]
    # Make files executable and add symlinks
    %w[foo.sh bar.sh baz].each do |cmd|
      chmod "u=wrx,go=rx", "#{prefix}/#{cmd}"
      bin.install_symlink "#{prefix}/#{cmd}" => "#{cmd.gsub(".sh", "")}-1.0"
    end
    # Update plist file
    plist = "#{prefix}/com.foo.plist"
    text = File.read(plist)
    replace = text.gsub("/usr/local/bin/foo", "/usr/local/bin/foo-1.0")
    File.open(plist, "w") { |file| file.puts replace }
  end

  test do
    assert_match "Foo", shell_output("#{bin}/foo-1.0 status")
  end
end

[cesarcoatl]

Additional info.

The ZIP file, once unpacked, contains a lib directory and the install process automatically symlinks all files and directories.

Is there a way to prevent this?

$ brew install --debug --verbose [email protected]
...
==> Finishing up
/usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/brew.rb (Formulary::FormulaLoader): loading /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/my-tap/homebrew-my-tap/Formula/[email protected]
ln -s ../Cellar/[email protected]/1.0/bin/foo-1.0 foo-1.0
ln -s ../Cellar/[email protected]/1.0/bin/bar-1.0 bar-1.0
ln -s ../Cellar/[email protected]/1.0/bin/baz-1.0 baz-1.0
ln -s ../Cellar/[email protected]/1.0/lib/core core
ln -s ../Cellar/[email protected]/1.0/lib/install-info.txt install-info.txt
ln -s ../Cellar/[email protected]/1.0/lib/libfoo.dylib libfoo.dylib
ln -s ../Cellar/[email protected]/1.0/lib/libwrapper-macosx-universal-64.dylib libwrapper-macosx-universal-64.dylib
ln -s ../Cellar/[email protected]/1.0/lib/libwrapper-macosx-universal-64.jnilib libwrapper-macosx-universal-64.jnilib
ln -s ../Cellar/[email protected]/1.0/lib/opt opt
ln -s ../Cellar/[email protected]/1.0/lib/runtime runtime
ln -s ../Cellar/[email protected]/1.0/lib/wrapper.jar wrapper.jar
...

Additionally. Why is there a mention of [email protected]?

Thanks

[gromgit]

      s.gsub! "/usr/local/bin/foo", "/usr/local/bin/foo-#{version}"

You should use #{bin} here, instead of hardcoding /usr/local/bin.

Also, the three doc files should not appear in #{prefix}, since nothing in your formula puts them there. Are you sure you reinstalled your formula without errors?

[cesarcoatl]

Thanks, @gromgit.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled, without errors running brew brew install --debug --verbose [email protected] based on the latest Formula I posted.

An regarding those three files that remain at the root folder, that's also something that I've seen with the formula for [email protected] I created with brew extract --force --version=2.7.1 jython coatl-dev/coatl-dev (here).

$ pwd
/usr/local/Cellar/[email protected]/2.7.1
$ ls -al
total 256
drwxr-xr-x  10 thecesrom  admin     320 Jan 15 21:44 .
drwxr-xr-x   4 thecesrom  admin     128 Jan 15 21:44 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 thecesrom  admin    6148 Jan 15 21:44 .DS_Store
drwxr-xr-x   3 thecesrom  admin      96 Jan  8 14:50 .brew
-rw-r--r--   1 thecesrom  admin     727 Jan  8 14:50 INSTALL_RECEIPT.json
-rw-r--r--   1 thecesrom  admin    9805 Jul 31  2014 LICENSE.txt
-rw-r--r--   1 thecesrom  admin  100252 Jun 17  2017 NEWS
-rw-r--r--   1 thecesrom  admin    2021 Jun 30  2017 README.txt
drwxr-xr-x   3 thecesrom  admin      96 Jan  8 14:50 bin
drwxr-xr-x  14 thecesrom  admin     448 Jan 15 17:55 libexec

[carlocab]

brew install automatically installs some files into prefix even if the install block does not tell them to. See, for example: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/Library/Homebrew/metafiles.rb

[cesarcoatl]

Finally, I added this line just before the end of the install.

    # Link plist
    prefix.install_symlink "#{libexec}/com.foo.plist" => "#{plist_name}.plist"

And get the following when I install the formula:

$ brew install coatl-dev/coatl-dev/[email protected]
==> Installing [email protected] from coatl-dev/coatl-dev
==> Downloading https://files.foo.com/release/foo/1.0/foo-1.0.zip
Already downloaded: /Users/thecesrom/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/7e797d72183802dc02336411568b0a7cded5dd1b3c6ec49e1793ac8baaffc1a8--foo-1.0.zip
==> Caveats
To have launchd start coatl-dev/coatl-dev/[email protected] now and restart at login:
  brew services start coatl-dev/coatl-dev/[email protected]
==> Summary
🍺  /usr/local/Cellar/[email protected]/1.0: 1,323 files, 926.7MB, built in 39 seconds

I can live with those three files that remain there for some unknown reason.

Thanks @carlocab, @jonchang, and @gromgit for your input.

[cesarcoatl]

Latest finding.

By placing "move" instructions within post_install has solved the "misplaced" files problem:

  def post_install
    %w[License.html Notice.txt README.txt].each do |f|
      libexec.install "#{prefix}/#{f}"
    end
  end